5 Creative Strategies for Increasing Affordable Housing

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase "affordable housing"? Perhaps a decrepit public housing project funded and (poorly) managed by your city's housing authority? Or maybe a fancy, new, LEED-certified building that cost your town hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit and will never pay for itself? These two extremes only describe a tiny fraction of the many different models for affordable housing, most of which are not even subsidized by the government.

Strong Towns contributor and member Daniel Herriges emphasizes the value of financing affordable housing at the local level instead of relying on federal hand-outs to fund housing development. He writes, "The federal government matters, but ultimately, building Strong Towns means building local economic ecosystems that are in balance and sustainable: where local funds are able to meet local needs in ways that are responsive to local conditions."

Nolan Gray wrote about three different ways to expand housing options in his town (Lexington, KY), but one of the most significant is eliminating parking requirements. This enables developers to build more housing instead of parking spaces that sit empty most of the time.